I am a fan of Ciril Hitz. He is the department chair of the International Baking and Pastry Institute at Johnson & Wales university.. His DVD was recommended by a baker in Montana on his website. Anyway, his DVD titled Better Bread has a wealth of information.. if you might be interested in this his website ishttp://www.breadhitz.com. He also has a just released book called Baking Artisan Bread and so I bought it. Anyway, he has a recipe and procedure for pizza I had to try and I thought I'd pass on the results.

He starts his pizza dough with a poolish which he lets set at room temperature for 12 to 16 hours.POOLISHBread flour 7.75 oz 100%Water 70degree 7.75 oz 100instant yeast pinch .1

After mixing the dough is put in a covered oiled container for 45 minutesThe dough is given a stretch and fold and is re covered in the container for 45 minutesThe dough can then be scaled into 7.75 oz dough balls and refrigerated for 4 to 6 hours or up to the next day.

I fully expected this to be on the bready side and it was. It was also very tender as you can see by the bottom of the crust, it was very light and very delicious..(but then again, I really haven't had many pizzas that I don't consider delicious!!) I baked the pizzas in my home oven directly on a 575 degree pizza stone.I'm guessing from my results that this crust might be perfect for a very high heat oven..believe me, that will be my next experiment.

Thanks for posting the dough formulation and for showing us your results. I am always intrigued by poolish-based recipes.

If my math is correct, the dough formulation you posted will produce a dough batch of around 71 ounces, or enough to make roughly 9 dough balls. The poolish represents about 21.8% of the total dough weight or about 36.1% of the total formula flour. Those numbers fit the profile of a bread dough. Did the crust have a baguette-like flavor and color by any chance? Also, what size pizzas did you make?

For those who are interested, with some modest number crunching it should be possible to scale the recipe up or down, using the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html along with the poolish percent numbers mentioned above.

The pizzas I made were scaled at 8 oz and they very easily made a 10 inch pizza ( I even measured). Can't say that it tasted like a baguette exactly....i think with more heat I can get a darker crust..this one was very light..

I was surprised that the dough formulation does not call for any sugar. At 100% hydration, a poolish has a lot of enzymatic activity, especially for a long prefermentation period at room temperature, and at about 36% of the total flour weight (for your recipe) it will use up a lot of the natural sugars in the flour, leaving less fermentiscible sugars in the final mix to contribute to crust coloration. This problem is often solved by adding about 0.5-1% diastatic malt (based on the total flour) as part of the final mix.

Based on your dough ball weight of 8 ounces for a 10" pizza, I also calculated the thickness factor. It is 0.1018592. Using that thickness factor in the expanded dough calculating tool, along with the above baker's percents, it is possible to determine the quantities of ingredients for essentially any pizza size. For example, for a single 14" pizza--the size I would most likely make--the required quantities of ingredients are:

In my case, I would also use a bowl residue compensation of 2.5% to compensate for minor dough losses during preparation of the dough. That value is higher than normal because I have discovered that the dough losses are higher when working with poolish because the poolish sticks to everything. Using the 2.5% figure, the final results look as follows:

Of course, one can also use the Dough Weight option of the expanded dough calculating tool to determine the required ingredients for essentially any total dough batch weight. However, whatever method is used to determine the required quantities of ingredients in any case, it will be necessary to calculate how much of the total formula flour, water and IDY are needed for the poolish. Based on the information you provided, the portion of the total formula flour for the poolish comes to about 18%. Whatever that value of poolish flour that is, the same weight of water would be used for the poolish. The amount of IDY needed for the poolish would be 0.1% of the weight of the poolish flour. It will still be small. In fact, in the last example given above, it would be 0.0165 teaspoon of IDY. That would be a bit more than 1/64 t. (it is the "drop" mini measuring spoon shown at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5583.msg47264.html#msg47264). As a practical matter, one might want to make more than just one dough ball, but the above shows how one would go about determining the amounts of ingredients to use for any case.

I suspect that the cornmeal is for taste and texture, although there really isn't that much of it (one tablespoon for about 4.44 pounds of dough).

I usually use a separate bowl to make the poolish, so I am more likely to experience dough losses as a result of the poolish sticking to the sides of the bowl, wooden spoons, spatulas, etc. In the 14" pizza size example I gave, the weight of the poolish is so small, about 3.5 ounces (I estimate almost a half cup), that it wouldn't make sense to use my mixer bowl. In your case with the full batch size, the poolish weighs about 15.5 ounces, or close to a pound, so it does make sense to use your mixer bowl. But even then you are likely to experience some small dough losses. So, I personally would use a bowl residue compensation of 1.5% when using your method. I compare actual and calculated weights for all of my doughs and it always amazes me how often there are losses, even when I am careful about measuring out the ingredients, scraping the mixer bowl, attachments, my fingers, etc.

Since I first tried this recipe and procedure, I've been intrigued with the end results I've been getting. These crusts are on my A list for home oven cooked pies. I've been experimenting a bit and thought I'd pass on what I have learned. On the following pies, I've eliminated the corn meal, and I've reduced the yeast in the final dough to 1/8 teaspoon (because I knew some of the dough wouldn't be used for up to 6 days).

The first pizza is made of 100% KA bread flour. It was in the refrigerator for 6 days and cooked in about 3 minutes on my 580 to 610 degree oven stone. It is a 9 ounce dough ball stretched to about 11 1/2 inches.

The second pizza is made of 20% KA Bread flour and 80% Roma oo flour. It was in the refrigerator for 3 days and cooked in about 4 minutes. It is also a 9 ounce ball stretched to 11 1/2 inches.

Both pies were delicious, but for this experiment, the 100% KA pie wins because there is much more action in the dough....it is light as air, but crispJohn

Peter,Take the water from the final dough ingredients and pour it down all the edges of your poolish container. The poolish being all gelatin like and filled with CO2 will float off the container walls like a balloon in a bath tub. Then just pour it all in your mixing bowl and go to town. Usually only very little sticks using this method.Dean

PS:That recipe reminds me of french bread....minus the cornmeal, I have to try it. I love that little acidic tang you get from using a poolish in breadmaking.

I did some more experimenting these last two days with the poolish method. I changed the recipe a bit and also changed some procedures to see what I could create.

I first made a poolish:7.75 oz of KABF7.75 oz of cold tap water .05 oz of yeastmixed and let set for 15 hours at room temp

rest of dough35.25 oz of KABF19.25 oz of cold tap water .10 oz yeast .90 oz of sea saltall of the poolish above

To the poolish I added all the water with the sea salt dissolved in it. I then added half the flour and all the yeast and mixed until incorporated. I then slowly mixed in the other half of the flour until incorporated. This dough was mixed until the dough pulled away from the bowl. At this point, the dough rested for 20 minutes. It was then mixed another 2 minutes. At this time the dough was scaled and placed in plastic containers. All the containers (except for one)went into the refrigerator.

The one I left out fermented at room temperature for 11 hours. The first two pictures show this dough..the pizza was excellent taste and texture wise. It had a very strong baguette flavor which I adore. 11 oz dough 13 inch pizza

The second two pictures are of a dough which was cooled for 8 hours and then allowed to warm back up for two. This pizza was also good, but it didn't have the flavor of the first. 11 oz dough 12 and half inchJohn

Here are a couple pictures of the dough after having sat 35 hours in the refrigerator. This simply might be the best pizza I have ever eaten...the breadish flavor is much more subtle, the bottom crust has a very thin veneer of crispiness with nothing but lightness above it. The difference a day makes in the cooler is amazing. I think the picture of the bottom crust shows it all.

Hey JohnI tried your method this weekend with excellent results! I used my current favored hydration and mix method with a 20% preferment following your ratios and method. I decided to try this for a bit of a rushed pizza party so only was able to give the poolish about 11 hours, then 12 hours in the fridge. The results were favored by everyone (me included) over the formula I have been tweaking on for 3 months! Best texture, crisp, flavor, and internal moistness I have yet made. I did note that I may have let the preferment go past the break point (the sun came out and bathed it thru a window which really warmed it up), but no ill effects detected. I also found less oven spring on this method than my usual, but that may have been due to using AP rather than bread flour (again due to rushing). I still have one dough ball in the fridge and am looking forward to what it produces after a bit more time. Thanks for a great recipe and my new favorite!Hog

HogGlad the dough worked so well for you...do yourself a favor sometime and make enough dough balls to test throughout a series of time. As good as the dough tastes with just minimal fermentation, it gets better and better with time. Of course this is understandable with a normal dough, but as Peter mentions above, you would think one would need to add sugar (in some form) to make a dough with poolish work for longer periods of time. I also would recommend a higher protein content flour.Best wishesJohn

I thought this was a thread worth reviving, as I'm doing something similar to this right now (though I wouldn't consider it "American Style.)

Old Critter has given me a similar poolish recipe, but mine is a bit different.

it's 42% of the dough weight I believe, and it sits at room temp for about 4 hours, is refrigerated, then added to the final dough. I know when left out for a while, the poolish ferments rapidly, so I'm wondering how the high poolish percentage with the shorter ferment time will affect the dough.

The poolish then comes to room temp for a couple hours, is added to the final dough, allowed to rest 2 hours, cut into balls and refrigerated for a day until used.

I am cooking the pies tonight. Any thoughts or opinions or input is welcome.

Your poolish preferment is similar to what I am using for my dough. I think the poolish I use is about 30% of the dough weight. I also let the poolish ferment, then cold ferment the poolish for three days, before it is incorporated into the final dough and then another day cold ferment. I have found when making my poolish, I didnít have to let it come up room temperature, before incorporating into the final dough.

When I first used this method, it all depends on how fermented the dough is and from what I have found, I couldnít give the dough as much warm-up time before starting to form the skins. Since your formula is a little different, it will be interesting to see how your dough performs and also see you pizzas.

We'll see how the dough handles and how it comes out. My oven is preheating as I type this.

My dough does not look overfermented, so here's to hoping it holds up alright . The final dough has been coming to room temperature for about an hour and a half, and I have about a half hour for the oven to be heated properly.